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But before you have time to wink, the class foe called landowners and capitalists, arrives on the spot and takes the workman by the collar; and, maybe, when some brave Prussian subaltern (or an English one, who knows?) places our workman against the wall to be shot, the good-natured fellow will scratch his head saying, "What a fool I have been!"
We must look sharp. Don't let Peter wait for Bill, or Bill for Peter. Let no one be idle, but all set earnestly to work. Universal military training is the most urgent and most important problem of the day.
The old army was based on the retreat of the soldiers. This happened because of capitalists and landowners commanding over millions of soldier-peasants and workmen, whose interests were contrary to their own. The capitalist Government was thus obliged to turn the soldier into a brainless tool, acting against his own interests. But the Red Army of the workers and peasants, on the contrary, is defending its own cause. It must therefore be based only on the enlightenment and conscientiousness of all comrades who enter its ranks. Hence the need for special courses, reading-rooms, lectures, meetings and conferences. In their leisure hours the soldiers of the Red Army must take an active part together with the workmen in the political life of the country, attending meetings and sharing the life of the working class.
This is one of the most important conditions for creating a firm revolutionary discipline: not the former discipline of the rod, but the new discipline of the class-conscious revolutionary. If the bond between the army and the working class is broken, then the army rapidly degenerates and can easily turn into a band willing to serve the master who pays most. Then it begins to fall asunder, and nothing can save it. And, on the contrary, if the soldiers of the Red Army keeps close contact with and takes an interest in the lives, then they will be exactly what they are meant to be—the armed organ of the revolutionary masses.
One of the best ways of keeping in contact with the masses besides the above-mentioned lectures, political meetings, is the utilisation of the soldiers for continuously training the workers in shooting, handling rifles, machine guns, etc. Instead of idling, card playing, and other "recreations," instead of senselessly sauntering about the barracks, they can turn to creative work, which is in uniting the proletariat into one friendly
